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1900 Conservative Party General Election Manifesto

The manifesto of the Marquess of Salisbury

On the eve of the dissolution I take the liberty of recalling to your minds the considerations
which, in my judgement, should weigh with you in the exercise of your rights as voters during
the next few weeks.

The one object you should have in view is to bring about, to the utmost of your power, by
the exercise of your vote, the result you desire to attain. This counsel seems a truism; but
it is nevertheless tolerably evident that, if the elections fail to produce a Parliament
fitted to deal with the emergency of the time, it can only be because the truism is
neglected.

In the forecast of competent prophets we are threatened with many abstentions. These
abstentions will be due to one or two causes. Either the candidate whom the voter prefers upon
broad issues of policy differs from him as to some subordinate question on which he has set
his heart, or the voter is convinced that his friend will succeed without his troubling himself
to give a vote.

It is obvious that if these causes of abstention operate in a sufficient number of instances
they will imperil a considerable number of seats; and no man can know how many of his
fellow-electors are disposed, by imitating it, to give to his conduct its natural result.

If they are many the majority of the winning party will be reduced; and it will be so far
crippled in carrying out the policy on which the nation has decided. Whose purpose will
this result have served?

It is certainly not the result the abstaining voter desires. He will not be one whit
nearer his ideals in respect to various sectional objects in regard to which independent
electoral combinations have been proposed. On the fate of these questions the election that
is pending will have left no trace; and the abstention of the abstaining elector will have
been without effect. But on the broad questions of policy the electors abstaining from
whatever cause, whether from resentment on a subordinate question or from indolent
over-confidence, will have a formidable influence. They will have contributed within the
limits of their ability to weaken the Parlimentary force of the Unionist party, and of the
Unionist Government to whom power may be entrusted.

The gravest questions must be dealt with. The Imperial Power over the territories of the
two South African Republics, which, as events have proved, was unwisely relinquished, must
be rebuilt upon durable foundations.

In due time those territories will doubtless enjoy the benignant colonial policy which this
country has pursued for half a century, and whose brilliant fruit may be discerned in the
affection that so many of our colonies have displayed to the mother country during the recent
war.

How long an interval must elapse before the full position of a British colony can be attained
by these South African territories will naturally depend on the disposition and conduct of the
inhabitants. But we cannot expect to secure the steady submission of those whom we have
overcome in the field, unless they see that the Government of the Queen has so much
Parliamentary strength that there is no hope of driving it from its policy of persistent
resisteance or agitation. All the recent troubles of South Africa have come from a shift of
Parliamentary opinion at a crucial moment.

The brilliant success of Lord Roberts and his Army must not blind us to the fact that the war
has disclosed imperfrections in our own armour of defence which, but for it, might have
remained unnoticed. It will be among the most urgent duties of Parliament and the Government,
now that peace is apparently restored, to investigate and remove the defects our military
system in the light of scientific progress and the experience of other Powers. But for such a
task a Government will need strong Parliamentary support. Some may think, though I should
not agree with them, that the task might be as effectively performed by our opponents, if
any possessed an adequate majority and a party organisation capable of sustaining the burden
of government. But it certainly could not be discharged by a nearly divided House of Commons
and a Ministry depending upon a broken party.

To the difficulties which will occupy a future Government China will furnish an abundant
contribution. We will fully shared with other Powers that calamities by which the disturbances
in that Empire have been commenced; and we are probably more interested than any other nation
in the preservation of the treaty rights which protect our commerce. The fact that we are
acting with other Powers forbids me from entering without reserve upon questions of Chinese
policy. But in maintaining our own rights, and joining in the efforts of our allies to restore
and secure tranquillity, we shall be approaching a task of which it is difficult to overrate
the complexity.

I earnestly trust that the electors, in confiding the solution of this and the other problems
I have mentioned to the party which is victorious at the polls, will remember that, unless the
party is armed with a strong majority in the House of Commons, it will lack the authority
at home and abroad which is essential to the performance of its task.

Archive of Conservative Party Manifestos

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Party should go to
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